SAVANNAH, Ga. – Subtropical storm Beryl crept Sunday toward the Southeast U.S.Before disbanding, the congressional debt-reduction committee considered agriculture spending cuts advocated by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-3rd.
“It was not exactly as we presented it, but there were a lot of facets in the REFRESH Act that were on the table at the very end, until everything fell apart,” Stutzman said Wednesday in an interview.
Stutzman and Lugar introduced the Rural Economic and Ranch Sustainability and Hunger Act – or REFRESH – in October. It would cut $41 billion in federal appropriations for farm, conservation and nutrition programs.
The bipartisan supercommittee broke up Nov. 21 after failing to agree on ways to trim the $15 trillion federal debt by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years.
Lugar spokesman Andy Fisher said in an email that panel members “were apparently ready to accept” large parts of the Lugar-Stutzman bill, including shrinking a land-conservation subsidy program from 29 million acres to 24 million acres and ending direct federal payments to farmers of corn, soybeans and perhaps other crops.
“We were probably close to having 65 percent of what we asked for in the REFRESH act – that was on the table,” Stutzman said.
Fisher said it was not known whether the supercommittee discussed possible revisions to the nutrition assistance program for low-income people. The Lugar-Stutzman bill would have decreased program spending by 2 percent. Stutzman said he and Lugar received information on supercommittee discussions from House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla. Stutzman, a LaGrange County farmer, is a member of the committee, and Lugar, who manages a Marion County farm, is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. No Hoosier lawmakers were on the 12-member debt-reduction panel.
“It’s a good starting point for us,” Stutzman said about the supercommittee’s work on his and Lugar’s proposals. “I was comfortable … with the direction that the supercommittee and the ag chairman were discussing.”Fisher said the farm legislation “is still very much alive” for consideration by the agriculture committees and the full Congress, which must renew its multiyear farm bill before Oct. 1, 2012.
Asked about the mood on Capitol Hill in the wake of the supercommittee’s failure to recommend budget cuts, Stutzman said: “There’s a lot of disappointment, there’s a lot of frustration, there’s a lot of anxiety. … It’s, ‘Now what? What’s the next step?’ ”
President Obama is pressing Congress to extend payroll tax cuts scheduled to expire this year. Stutzman said he’d like “a broader solution” that includes revamping the income tax code.
Republican legislators have urged reductions in tax rates in exchange for the elimination of certain tax credits and deductions. They believe lower rates will spur business growth and consumer spending, and hence tax revenue, alleviating the federal debt.
